Visit to the Sheriff's Office and Stuff from Amazon.com

More little steps along the path.

Today Tina and I met at the Bellingham City Police Station to get a "Letter of Goodness" as Tina likes to call it. We had to get a notarized letter stating we have no criminal history. When we got to the police station, they informed us that since our house is just out of the city limits we needed to go to the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office. Fortunately it was just down the street and they let us leave our cars in their lot. The sheriff's office was pretty quiet. We payed $15 a piece, then walked down to the Mount Bakery to get some coffee and croissants. We came back 15 minutes later and she gave us some very nice looking letters on letterhead that she had notarized stating that they weren't aware of any illegal activities on our part.

I also sent our letter of intent (LOI) in to the agency. I shipped it from work in a UPS next day letter package. It's nice having a fully stocked UPS shipping station right outside my office door! It will be translated and sent to China. We're itching now because the director posted on their website that her e-mail is down today. We want to ask her how long it will take to hear back. I'm sure we'll find out how long the wait will take soon, but we want to bug her for an answer now!

Then after dinner tonight I found where Ben hid the mail. Actually it was in plain sight, but not where it goes. Anyway, there were two videos I had ordered from Amazon.com last weekend:

Adopting From China: A Video Survival Guide

and

Big Bird In China!

We've been looking over the Amazon store; they have tons of stuff on adopting from China. This adoption video got pretty good reviews. I'll try to post what I think of it. It was only $19, and since Amazon gives you free freight if your order is over $25 I threw in the Big Bird video because it's on DVD and was only $10. I've heard it's pretty good and since it was made in 1983 I think it qualifies as "old school" Sesame Street material. Besides, most of the Chinese culture videos we've been getting at the library are pretty dry. I'm ready to see Big Bird's spin on it.